Vidagdha-madhava :: Rupa Gosvamin | Commentary :: Visvanatha Cakravartin

Texts used in making this edition:

1. (ed.) Sri Satyendranath Basu. Kalikata: Basumati Sahitya Mandir. (n.d.) This is the source of the commentary and is the primary authority for the text. Where this text is manifestly wrong and not corroborated by the commentary, I have turned to (2) below.

2. (ed.) Pandit Ramakanta Jha. (Haridas Sanskrit Series, 289) Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1970. I have followed the numbering of this text.

The commentary is attributed to Vishwanath Chakravarti, but I doubt this. See comments below. Where there is a conflict of readings, I have followed the commentary where possible, though the Chowkhamba text has been better proofread.

Text entered by Jagadananda Das, November 2003.

Added by: Jagat
Credits:
Text version: 1.00 (legend)
Keywords: Visvanatha, Cakravartin, Vidagdha, Madhava, Vidagdhamadhava, Rupa, Goswami, plays, Krishnadeva, Sarvabhauma

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Additional notes from the editors' research and selected discussion forum contributions.

Haridas Das (Vaishnava Abhidhana, p. 1751) writes the following:

The Vidagdha-madhava-vivriti, a commentary on the VM, is attributed to Visvanatha Cakravartin in the Berhampore edition of the work. It is my opinion that this is incorrect. Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with Visvanatha's language know that he draws only the most delightful pictures on his writer's canvas. The easiest way of assessing this and other commentaries (to Lalita Madhava and Dana-keli-kaumudi) attributed to Visvanatha is to compare the comments he has made on quoted verses from those works in Ujjvala-nilamani or Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu. Anyone who does so will immediately be able to tell the differences in style and content.

Another doubt arises in relation to this Vivriti: its mangalacharan verse is almost word for word the same as that of the commentary to Krishna-bhavanamrita, only the words "vizvanAtha-guNa-sUcaka-kAvya-ratnam" in the latter is "rUpa-nAma-guNa-sUcaka-kAvya-ratnam" in the former. It does not seem illogical to conclude that the author of the commentary to the Krishna-bhavanamrita commentary is likely the same as that of Vidagdha-madhava-vivriti, namely Krishnadeva Sarvabhauma, a prominent disciple of Visvanatha.

Some biographical notes on Krishnadeva Sarvabhauma can be found here, in the comments section.

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